Crisis of Conscience (Story)

Your internal struggle and contradictory actions have left you teetering on a knife’s edge between good and evil. You must choose which path you will make your own.

Prerequisite(s): Lawful neutral, neutral, or chaotic neutral alignment. Your alignment must have shifted from either good or evil at least once since 1st level or the last time you completed this feat (see Special).

Benefit(s): You are an enigma unto those who cleave to notions of morality as guiding life principles. Habits and mannerisms from your past life send subtly confusing signals to those trying to read you. Whenever another character attempts to discern your alignment, loyalties, or intentions (including via magical effects such as detect thoughts and when you are using Bluff to send a secret message or feint), you gain a +2 bonus on opposed skill checks and on Will saving throws to resist such effects.

Goal: Resolve your conscience with an act of decisive good or evil that shifts your alignment accordingly. Acts of decisive good include dedicating your worldly wealth to a noble cause or charitable institution, risking death for the sake of others, or another notable sacrifice for a greater good. Acts of decisive evil include reducing a city to penury and starvation, murdering or terrorizing innocents, or other, darker deeds.

Completion Benefit: If your alignment changes from good to evil or evil to good, you know how to entice others down your path. While you retain this alignment, you gain a +2 bonus on Charisma– and Wisdom-based skill checks made to interact with a sentient creature of your previous (and now opposite) moral alignment. This bonus increases to +4 if success would cause the target to act against its moral alignment (at the GM’s discretion). If it does so, you retain this bonus when interacting with that target until its moral alignment is the same as yours.

If you return to your original moral alignment, you have gained deeper insight into your convictions. While you retain this moral alignment, you become aware of any action or item that could adversely affect your alignment or your standing with your deity (if you have one), including magical effects. You acquire this information prior to performing such an action or becoming associated with such an item if you take a moment to contemplate the act.

Special: If you’ve already completed this feat by changing to the opposite moral alignment and have since returned to being morally neutral, you may take this feat a second time. You gain no additional basic benefits, but if you complete this feat’s goal a second time by crossing back to your original alignment, you gain additional completion benefits—you gain the second completion benefit, and can apply the first benefit against good and evil creatures.